The present invention relates to garment hangers and, more particularly, to a plastic garment hanger having a collapsible plastic hook.
Plastic garment hangers having plastic hooks are well-known in the art. These hangers are typically formed as an integral unit using an injection molding process. Thus, the orientation of the plastic hook is fixed with respect to the plastic body of the hanger.
Many garments that are manufactured oversees are pre-hung on a hanger, and then shipped to the United States as a hanger/garment combination. In other words, the garment is hung on the appropriate hanger at the manufacturing location (e.g., the Far East), packaged into a shipping box or container, and shipped to the United States. Upon delivery to the retail location, the retailer simply has to remove the pre-hung garments from the shipping box/container, and hang such pre-hung garments in the retail store. Thus, there is no need for the retailer to incur time and cost hanging the individual garments on individual hangers.
Although garments can be tightly packed within the mentioned packaging boxes/containers, those skilled in the art will appreciate that the hooks of the garment hangers take up a significant volume of space within such boxes/containers. This additional space, of course, translates into additional shipping costs.
There is therefore a need in the art for a plastic garment hanger having a plastic hook, which in addition to functioning as a conventional garment hanger in a retail location, is also capable of providing a reduced footprint during packaging/transportation.